Museum shooting hits close to home for play coordinators

Janet Langhart Cohen had what she called "opening night jitters" on her way to see the debut of her new play at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington on June 10.

Cohen, a Chevy Chase resident who is also a renowned journalist and the wife of former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, penned a play called "Anne and Emmett," a staged version of an imaginary conversation between Anne Frank and Emmett Till, a young boy brutally killed in the South in the 1950s after whistling at a white woman.

The play delved into issues of race, hate, violence and discrimination. She didn't realize that those themes would soon become very real for those in the museum — including for her husband, who was inside.

Her anxiety turned to panic when she heard the news that shots had been fired. Police would later identify the shooter as James W. von Brunn, 88, said to be a white supremacist who has written extensively on the Internet detailing his hate for Jews and African Americans.

Cohen would later learn that von Brunn fatally shot security guard Stephen Johns, 39, during the outburst of gunfire.

"I was frantic," Cohen said. She attempted to gain access to the museum, but she was told no one was being allowed inside. "I worried about [my husband], I worried about my crew. I heard there were two or three people down....you want to know which ones, and then again, you don't want to know."

Cohen had attended the museum often in recent days for rehearsals of the play. That Wednesday, most of the cast and crew had gathered in the museum's auditorium for a final rehearsal. She had become friendly with staff at the museum, including with Johns, whom she said often offered her an umbrella during the recent bout of wet weather.

"Anytime you hear about a shooting you are worried," Cohen said. "But when it's a place you're familiar with, that you call home, when you have friends and loved ones there, it takes on a whole new meaning."

She would later learn that her husband, though safe, had been a mere 30 feet from the shooter.

In an interview with The Gazette Friday, Cohen expressed sympathy for Johns' family.

"I'm very, very sorry and my heart and my sympathies — as well as my husband's — go out to Officer Johns' family," Cohen said. "We are just devastated."

The play's opening would have marked the first time a play had debuted at the museum. And though the incident has shaken the cast and crew, the play opened Friday with a previously scheduled performance at George Washington University.

The incident underscores that "hate still lives," Cohen said.

"You wonder when you tell a story that happened 60 years ago, will it have any relevance?" Cohen said. The incident made it all too obvious that the answer is yes, Cohen said. "All those hateful things are still out there, and this incident brought it home that the play is very contemporary. It's not a fairy tale, it's not an old story, it's a now story."

For Potomac resident Josh Coyne, 16, the incident also hit close to home. Coyne, who has been described as a musical virtuoso, composed the score for "Anne and Emmett" — delving into the personality of each character to put their stories to song. Coyne was introduced to Langhart Cohen after meeting her husband at one of his violin performances, and has since become close with the couple.

Coyne, a Winston Churchill High School student, wasn't at the rehearsal the day of the shooting because he was taking final exams. He received word of the shooting just before he was set to leave for the museum. "It makes me mad that after everything that's changed, we're still at this point battling hate and anger and violence and murder," Coyne said.

Cohen said she has heard speculation that the shooting may have been connected to the play and incited by the fact that both Jewish and African American cast members are involved. But she said there's no way to know the shooter's intentions for sure.

"It could have been a coincidence — we don't know. We only know ...that this shooting made the play more relevant."

Cohen said that one message in her play is that we must do more than remember struggles like the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement — we must act to raise awareness about hate. She hopes to use her play to drive that message home. "The play is a call to action and those shots ringing out in that very sacred place, those shots were a call to action to all of us."